Movie review: Joaquin Phoenix and Todd Phillips make ‘Joker’ a winner

Ed Symkus More Content Now

Wednesday

Oct 2, 2019 at 10:58 AM

Let’s get some unavoidable Oscar business out of the way, specifically how history will be repeated next February. With his “Joker” performance, Joaquin Phoenix is going to win for Actor in a Leading Role, marking the second time the character gets the gold. The first was when Heath Ledger won for Actor in a Supporting Role in “The Dark Knight.” Former “Jeopardy!” contestants will know that this sort of thing has happened only once before: Marlon Brando nabbed Best Actor for playing Vito Corleone on “The Godfather,” and Robert De Niro won Supporting Actor for the younger version of the character in “The Godfather Part II.”

But Joaquin Phoenix, the dark heart and soul of “Joker,” is only one reason the film has become the first official entry on my 2019 Top 10 list. It might have been enough to see what he’s done with the character of Arthur Fleck - a down-on-his-luck clown for hire whose appearance and behavior regularly earn him beatings, who lives with his mother, has no social skills, can barely hide constant anguish behind the smile painted on his face, has a mental condition that causes him to break out into uncontrollable laughter when stressed, and has an imagination so active he finds it hard to differentiate between fantasy and dark reality. That would have been plenty for a fascinating character study.

But the script from Todd Phillips and Scott Silver, which weaves an origin story around the initially unbalanced Arthur, who is on his way to becoming the unhinged Joker, also takes a look at the world or at least the city - Gotham City - and some of the people around him. And it’s not a very pleasant sight.

An ongoing garbage strike has led to the existence of “super rats” in the city’s dirty streets, and a fed-up public is ready to revolt against the wealthy folks who are doing nothing to help them with life’s daily grind. The relentlessly downbeat atmosphere created here comes partly from the dire situations, as well as from the bleak, sometimes lurid cinematography by Todd Phillips regular Lawrence Sher and the grim string score by Hildur Guonadottir (which should at least grab an Oscar nomination).

It’s into this arena that Phoenix takes a seemingly effortless stroll, giving a physically graceful, emotionally shattering performance that fits comfortably into the twisted fabric of the film. He obviously lost a lot of weight for the part, as he’s emaciated and, when his shirt comes off, you can see his ribs trying to poke through his skin. His Arthur is perfectly capable of having a normal conversation, but he almost always wears a lost look in his eyes. Little bits of his character are slowly revealed - he spent some time locked up in a hospital, he’s been ordered to see a therapist, he’s on seven medications - and it’s clear that he’s one unhappy guy. His two dreams are to become a stand-up comic and, in his words, “I just don’t want to feel so bad anymore.”

But there’s no help to be found. His overworked therapist is useless, his favorite talk show host Murray Franklin (Robert De Niro, summoning the ghost of Rupert Pupkin) derides him on television, budget cuts cancel his meds, a mugging leads to a coworker giving him a gun, which in turn leads to an unnerving subway scene and the film’s first real outburst of terrifying violence, and he discovers that mom has been hiding a rather important secret from him.

Todd Phillips’ direction confidently veers back and forth between being smooth and jarring and he expertly keeps the film’s mood on track of building to a fever pitch. This is not a superhero movie or even a super villain movie. It’s a character study of a troubled person stuck in a troubled world. It’s probably not what hardcore fans of the DC universe are expecting and some of them will be disappointed. But it stands as a fierce, brave, riveting movie. When it’s over, you may feel exhausted, maybe even a little dirty. But you’ll know that you’ve been through an intense, no-holds-barred cinematic experience.

Ed Symkus writes about movies for More Content Now. He can be reached at esymkus@rcn.com.